Since the outbreak of the crisis in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon in 2016, many people have been rendered homeless as villages are torched down. Consequently, many of them have left these regions to safer places within and out of the country. Over 536.000 people have displaced internally, 39,000 others have escaped to neighboring Nigeria and an unknown number have fled to other countries as refugees.
RELUFA as a civil society organization fighting against the root causes of hunger have extended its actions to include humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced because it is our belief that food aid is necessary when people are faced with an emergency. It is within this context that RELUFA partnered with the FU’A Toula Kadji Foundation to implement a Solidarity Project to assist people affected by security crisis in different regions of Cameroon.
From February to June 2021, RELUFA and the Kadji foundation provided food and non-food items to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the towns of Bertoua, Douala, Dschang, Loum, Maroua, Souza and Yaounde.
In total, 1035 families representing a total of 6210 individuals, were assisted in this Solidarity project. Each of the beneficiary families received; 50kg bag of flour, 25 kg bag of rice, 10kg packet of “Panzani” pasta, 04 small basins, 01 carton of 15 bottles of 1 litre of Azur and Neima cooking oil, 05 Kg of sugar, 02 kg of gari in some cases, 01 carton of sardines of 50 tins, 01 carton of ham and chicken, containing 24 packets, 01 carton of biscuits, 04 pallets of UCB juice with 6 bottles of juice per pallet, amounting to 24 bottles of juice.
In all, the solidarity project has been a great experience to test private sector and civil society collaboration and the scale and impact of what the Kadji Foundation has realised through this project will remain a story to tell for a long time to come. The beneficiaries expressed their appreciation during the distribution with some internally displaced persons in Kourgi and Igawa camps even handing a written letter of appreciation to RELUFA and the Kadji Foundation. The Kadji Foundation is one of the few enterprises in Cameroon to have carried out humanitarian assistance of this scale.
